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fivemackhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7420848.stm
"MPs could seek to avoid future expenses criticism by awarding themselves an automatic lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes, a newspaper says"
"If a lump sum payment were made to each MP, the need for these documents to be produced would disappear and there could be a considerable cash boost for those MPs who spend less than the £23,000 permitted."
Handing out lump sums in cash to MPs is the kind of behaviour for which we tut and deduct at least three points when rating the governmental virtue of random countries in South America; what's next, black Mercedes? Is there any merit at all to the idea that important people do not need to provide receipts when spending public money?
If the issue is that MPs need second homes in London, would it make more sense to get Parliament to buy a random seven-hundred-room hotel, a class of building which London hardly lacks, and have them live there?
"MPs could seek to avoid future expenses criticism by awarding themselves an automatic lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes, a newspaper says"
"If a lump sum payment were made to each MP, the need for these documents to be produced would disappear and there could be a considerable cash boost for those MPs who spend less than the £23,000 permitted."
Handing out lump sums in cash to MPs is the kind of behaviour for which we tut and deduct at least three points when rating the governmental virtue of random countries in South America; what's next, black Mercedes? Is there any merit at all to the idea that important people do not need to provide receipts when spending public money?
If the issue is that MPs need second homes in London, would it make more sense to get Parliament to buy a random seven-hundred-room hotel, a class of building which London hardly lacks, and have them live there?
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-07 07:40 pm (UTC)The downside is that it would become as big a target as the Houses of Parliament themselves. Buying, say, 350 unloved houses, all within reasonably easy walking distance of Westminster, would seem to me to be a better plan; it would probably be of benefit if they weren't too nice, plus MPs had to share. Alternatively, there's always the prospect of trying to further increasing the quantity of technology in use (teleconferencing, etc.) in an attempt to increase the time that MPs spend in their constituency with their families and constituents and decrease the amount of time they spend away in London.
I know the backgrounds of two MPs. One of them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Kumar_%28UK_politician%29) worked at British Steel Technical as a researcher. (I worked alongside him briefly between his former stint as an MP and his current one. Smashing bloke.) The other (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Palmer) was pretty senior in IT management for a global chemistry firm and has said (IIRC - I like him too, so if I do not remember correctly then this is not intended as a smear) that he made the equivalent of ~£95k before becoming a MP, roughly halving his wage when he did so. I rather like our MPs frequently being high flyers in their chosen profession before they go into public service; while British Steel aren't super-generous, both these MPs earned doctorates the hard way and are clearly made of good stuff.
I think MPs are going to be inreasingly incentivised to prove themselves cleaner than clean to a sceptical audience, with the benefits to the public of Freedom of Information and increased connectivity, and I also believe that most of them do a pretty clean job already, and getting more so. Good.